An international meeting of workers’ delegates meets in St. Martin's Hall, London, and agrees to form an international organization of workers. The organization becomes the International Workingmen’s Association – (also known as the First International).

Farce in Lyon: Three weeks after citizens of Lyon set up a provisional revolutionary government and raise the red flag over their city hall (Sept 4, 1870), a small group of anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin, calling themselves the “Committee for the Salvation of France,” walk into Lyon city hall, and declare themselves in charge. In the name of the (imaginary) “Revolutionary Federation of Communes” they announce that the state is ‘abolished’ effective immediately. They nevertheless propose to exercise state-like powers themselves: they name one of their number commander-in-chief of the army, and Bakunin declares that anyone who tries to interfere, in any way whatsoever, with the activity of the revolutionary communes (i.e. his group), will be executed. The self-proclaimed vanguard is ejected from city hall a few hours later, and Bakunin leaves Lyon the next day.

As part of a U.S. government campaign to cripple the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members and former members of the IWW, 166 in all, are indicted for protesting against World War I. This is 10 months after U.S. President Woodrow Wilson won re-election on a promise to keep the U.S. out of the war. The radicals are accused of trying to “cause insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces” in violation of the so-called Espionage Act. 101 defendants are found guilty and given prison sentences ranging from days to twenty years, plus enormous fines.

In Denmark, hearing of imminent plans by the Nazi occupation forces to arrest and deport Danish Jews, anti-Nazi activists begin planning to smuggle Danish Jews to Sweden. In just three weeks, all but 481 of Denmark’s 8000 Jews are moved to safety.

Start of the Second Intifada in Palestine. The underlying cause of the revolt is the continuing occupation of Palestine and oppression of Palestinians; the immediate trigger is a deliberately provocative march by right-wing Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, accompanied by an entourage of right-wingers and hundreds of armed police, through the Temple Mount area in Jerusalem, which contains the Al-Aqsa Mosque.